In politics, there is no shame

Friday

Oct 26, 2012 at 12:01 AMOct 26, 2012 at 3:41 PM

Madison Taylor

Had an early morning visit on Monday from Steve Ross, the Burlington city councilman running as a Republican in House District 63 against Mebane councilwoman and Democrat Patty Phillpps. It’s for the job now held by Democrat Alice Bordsen who decided not to seek re-election.

And both parties want desperately to win it.

How desperate?

Well, desperate enough to sink thousands of dollars into snide campaign mailers meant to recklessly smear candidates with bogus, haphazardly checked or wildly exaggerated allegations — all heavily abetted by doctored pictures or photos taken of the candidates with the worst kinds of expressions on their faces.

Turns out Bordsen and Rep. Dan Ingle, the Republican who also decided not to seek re-election in District 64, might have outsmarted everyone else who decided to file. No sane person wants to run in this minefield of, uh, garbage.

Let me put it this way, Alamance County Commissioner Tim Sutton called on Thursday to draw my attention to a new attack mailer paid for by the state Republican Party that targets Phillipps. He called it a “new low’” in the already subterranean election mailer game. And Sutton is a Republican folks.

Disgust in this case is apparently bipartisan.

Now, two years ago, the battleground was in the N.C. Senate race between Rick Gunn and Tony Foriest. Many remember that one. It featured the mailer with a photo-shopped image of Foriest’s head on a baby’s body. The TV show “Jackass” had more intellectually honest stunts.

This year it looks like District 63 is in the gunsights of both parties. In that one, the GOP already stepped out of bounds so badly it issued an apology to Phillipps and her husband for false claims that the couple failed to pay taxes and had been taken to court over it. Turns out that didn’t happen at all. The original mailer depicted a woman who was not Phillipps cavalierly tossing cash into the air. It’s a dishonest image intended to mislead voters.

Now the Democrats should consider doing the same for Ross because of a similar mistake, only this one was partially created because the state party got some wrong original information from the city of Burlington. But the disingenuous tone of the ads had nothing to do with incorrect information at all.

Monday Ross delivered the most recent mailer bought by the Democrats in his race. Ross is depicted wearing a sombrero and the gaudy clothing of a tourist — right down to the white socks and sandals. It proclaims that Steve “Richie” Ross vacations in Mexico on the dimes, nickels and quarters of Burlington taxpayers.

The trouble is, the facts are wrong.

Ross did take a trip to Mexico and did so as a representative of Burlington for the Sister Cities program. He flew to Soledad de Graciano Sanchez, Mexico, which is one of Burlington’s sister cities. I don’t think it’s a popular tourism destination.

But he paid for it himself and kept the documents to prove it. Ross has receipts for all his expenditures while on that trip — all paid for with his personal credit card. He was not reimbursed by the city, said City Manager Harold Owen. The Democrats were originally incorrectly told by a city employee that the records were not available and that city representatives are reimbursed for such trips. In this instance, though, Ross and now retired Police Chief Mike Gauldin paid their own way.

Ross told me he’s retained legal counsel and is going after the state Democratic Party to retract the mailers. Ross said he could live with the mailers that stretched the truth — but certainly doesn’t like them. He will fight the ones that are flat wrong.

“I wasn’t expecting this,” Ross said of what he anticipated would happen after filing for office.

House District 64 has not been immune from such trashy campaign antics. An ad paid for by the state Republican Party goes after Democratic candidate Morris McAdoo who once got a traffic ticket and missed his day in court and was charged with failure to appear. These things happen. The original charge was a minor one.

But a glance at the GOP ad might lead a voter to believe McAdoo committed the crime of the century and is still on the lam from the law. “Political candidate Morris McAdoo wants you to elect him to the state House but first he’s got to keep from getting sent to the BIG HOUSE!” the ad states.

Good for Republican candidate Dennis Riddell for disavowing the ad. But that doesn’t make it go away and the state party leaders know it.

Such shenanigans aren’t new. Woodward and Bernstein launched their estimable journalism careers on unraveling dirty tricks used by Nixon’s Committee to Re-elect the President — aptly known as CREEP. These days I think of it as small-minded partisans in possession of more money and ambition than common sense and decency.

Anyway, if people want to know why there are often no good candidates to vote for, they can thank the Republicans and Democrats. This kind of residue keeps a lot of quality of people out of politics.

Madison Taylor is editor of the Times-News. Contact him by email at mtaylor@thetimesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @tnmadisontaylor.

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